Sarah Singh

Sometimes in life we encounter people who have not lost their lust for life, people who are full of passion, people who inspire you to be passionate too. Julia Doyle is exactly this person. When I met Julia, I knew right away I was in for some good stories. Not your average, run-of-the-mill stuff here. No, these tales were going to be exciting and entertaining. Let me tell you, I was not disappointed.

Julia was born in Czechoslovakia, or what is now known as Slovakia, and immigrated to Canada in December of 1938. She was just eight years old. At the time, her father was working on the Canadian Pacific Railway in a little town called Brookmere, just off of the Coquihalla highway in British Columbia. Julia recalls the journey to Canada and how excited she, her mother and her sister were. Her father had paid for their voyage and even bought them new clothes and jackets, especially for the journey. The jackets came in handy whilst on the ship across the Atlantic and again on the train from Pier 21 in Halifax all the way to Spences Bridge in British Columbia.
Upon arriving in Spences Bridge, the train conductor awoke Julia to point out her father, waiting on the train platform below. She couldn’t understand what was so special about the man standing there, he looked so normal. When she was finally introduced to her father, he little more to say than a grunt. Julia was incredibly disappointed, that moment was nothing like what she had thought it would be! She had imagined meeting her father for the first time as being an exciting and heartwarming moment. Instead she was met with this shy man who wasn’t able to say a single word to her. As a young girl, this was difficult for Julia to comprehend. She now wishes that she had tried harder to overcome her father’s shyness and get to know the kind man he was underneath.

Julia thoroughly enjoyed her time in Brookmere. She attended class at a tiny little schoolhouse in town. There was only one room and a total of six students. When she and her sister first moved to Canada, they could not speak English but their teacher would stay behind every day and help them. Their English improved significantly and by June of the next year both sisters could speak fluent Slovakian and English.

One of Julia’s fondest memories of living in Brookmere is from when she first arrived there. In Brookmere there were 24 houses, many of them owned by the Japanese railway workers. The houses were laid out so that all the foreigners were on one side of the railway tracks and all the Englishmen were on the other side. When Julia finally got to her new house, she went out into the snow outside and was surprised to see a little Japanese boy walking up to her. He held out his hand and offered her a Japanese orange. She had no idea what it was, having never seen anything like that before, and so she smelled it. Now, every time she smells an orange, it always pulls her back to that scene, it was the first Canadian thing to impress her. Though you can find oranges in supermarkets everywhere now, they will always remind her of Brookmere.

Unfortunately, not everything was rosy in Julia’s upbringing. When she first came to Canada, she never really felt accepted by the Canadians. At the tender age of twelve, Julia remembers being called derogatory names because she was a foreigner and living on the opposite side of the tracks from the Englishmen. She felt put down when she heard the term and it ruined her teenage life. She felt like she was the lowest person on Earth! Matters became worse when, shortly after Pearl Harbor, many of the Japanese were shipped off to war. Julia had to watch her friends leave and not know why. It was heart wrenching and she remembers everyone at the train station crying as they left. Although Julia came to terms with the name calling, nothing ever truly replaced the friends she had lost to the war. No one ever saw or heard from them again.

In June of 1944, Julia herself finished sixth grade and had to move away from Brookmere in order to attend high school. She ended up migrating to New Westminster. At first she was terribly sad about leaving Brookmere. She was used to there being inches of snow in the winter but in New West, there was just fog. Eventually, Julia grew to love New West. After getting married, she and her husband had to move around a lot for his work but she was really glad when they finally came back to New Westminster. All of her school friends were still there; she’s known some of them since 1944! Julie loves how everything in New Westminster is close by; it allows her to be the independent and sociable person that she is.

However, even after her move to B.C., Julia’s itch to travel was not satisfied. Having won Air Canada’s contest to “fly anywhere in Air Canada’s world” in the late 1970s, Julia, with her husband for company, traveled back to Czechoslovakia. They also visited Vienna, London, and New York. Julia loved New York! In the time she spent there, she and her husband watched the play, Grease. After the death of her husband, Julia and her youngest son went back to Slovakia. From there they went on to visit Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Munich, Prague, Rome and Ireland. It was in Ireland where the pair had quite the adventure sneaking onto a private golf course to spread her husband’s ashes- but I’ll let Julia tell you that story herself.

If she could travel anywhere now, Julia would travel to India and see the Taj Mahal. After reading about Princess Diana’s visit there, she felt inspired to see the magnificent structure herself. Maybe one day she’ll make it over!

For now, Julia keeps herself occupied with her friends, family, theatre, and books. She’s also part of a crafts club with quite an interesting history. Together with the club, she’s composed hampers for the poor, sponsored a child in a third world country, and done sewing for the Canada summer games! The club has been meeting for forty years now and the members are still very much in touch with each other. As we can see, Julia is a very active person. Perhaps it’s all the life-living she’s doing that keeps her so young at heart!

In parting, Julia had a few words of advice for the younger generation. She implores us to enjoy every single day, to stop and smell the roses. She wants us to be fearless and confident about ourselves. Don’t be shy, get involved in things we like to do, get involved with people we like to be around. In short, live your life so you don’t look back with regrets. After meeting Julia, I can honestly say that she inspired me to do more with my own life, to spend less time worrying and more time enjoying. Lessons like these teach you that no matter what bad things come your way, you just need to keep your head up and march on. Thank you Julia for the experience and good luck with all that comes your way!